


right to my heart

by endquestionmark



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:23:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4661334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon stops looking at Illya, because that just makes him want to put his foot through the wall, and looks at his gun, which isn’t difficult, because it’s about an inch from his face, and this close he can smell the faint sweet spice of cleaning oil. Instead of looking at Illya — the lines of him held in anticipatory stillness; the bulk of him in the blue half-light — Napoleon looks at the balance of gun and silencer, the heavy slide and the curl of Illya’s fingers on the grip, the angle of his thumb, and waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	right to my heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the approximately two hundred prompts on [the kinkmeme](https://kinkfromuncle.dreamwidth.org/) regarding sizekink and gunplay, but [this one in particular](https://kinkfromuncle.dreamwidth.org/640.html?thread=2432#cmt2432), which should also serve as your content warning; see also [radiophile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiophile) (again!) who is to blame for posting old White Collar fanart on my tlist and making me think about people who are more dangerous when they aren't holding guns, however you choose to interpret that.

There’s a hallway, which is not a remarkable one; it leads onto other hallways, and rooms which they have no time to investigate, and is sufficiently poorly lit for their purposes, which consist of concealment in the name of avoiding imminent death or at least unpleasant detainment. Illya doesn’t bother to warn Napoleon, just bodily shoves him aside and, while he’s still bouncing off the locked door — a storeroom, probably; there are no windows — steps after him. Napoleon finds his footing just before the guard rounds the corner, and goes stiller than still, hand on his gun, letting the shadows work for them.

Illya is a step ahead, gun raised, though he hasn’t got his finger on the trigger; Napoleon does his best to convey indignation without moving or breathing, which is difficult, but he thinks that he manages. Illya ignores him, anyway, which is less useless than it might be, given that Illya typically responds to Napoleon’s indignation by ignoring him, but Illya also usually responds to Napoleon’s self-satisfaction by ignoring him, and responds to Napoleon’s boredom by ignoring him, and so on and so forth. It makes Napoleon want to break innocent items of furniture and eat fine art and do all manner of things which make absolutely no sense but which seem perfectly rational in the face of Illya’s studied indifference.

The guard’s footsteps are closer, now, and Illya doesn’t move, but he does somehow loom a little at Napoleon, who tries to indicate that he really does enjoy having a functional ribcage, and also that he isn’t infinitely compressible; Illya responds by, unsurprisingly, ignoring Napoleon, if raising his gun in warning and not looking away from the hallway counts. Napoleon stops looking at Illya, because that just makes him want to put his foot through the wall, and looks at his gun, which isn’t difficult, because it’s about an inch from his face, and this close he can smell the faint sweet spice of cleaning oil. Instead of looking at Illya — the lines of him held in anticipatory stillness; the bulk of him in the blue half-light — Napoleon looks at the balance of gun and silencer, the heavy slide and the curl of Illya’s fingers on the grip, the angle of his thumb, and waits.

There’s a moment, as there always is, when the guard passes, and everything coalesces into a single point of readiness. The guard doesn’t turn, though, and Illya goes from the stillness of imminent action to the fluidity of imminent motion; Napoleon follows, and finds a new shadow to take on.

 

* * *

 

Back in the hotel, in Illya’s room, there are no shadows, and the light lacks the blue quality that it takes on at night in factories, and warehouses, and the places that Napoleon has found himself lately. The lamps cast a warm glow in the en suite, where Napoleon washes the grit from his scraped palm — not as neat an exit as he would have liked, some minor excitement with a borrowed car which they had left considerably the worse for wear, though at least it hadn’t been their windscreen which had been shot out — and wanders back into the other room to find Illya cleaning his gun on the coffee table, case open on the floor and holster still looped over his shoulders. There’s a quiet ceremony to it, though Napoleon isn’t particularly given to poesy about weapons: the silencer laid on the edge of a cloth, the rod and brush, the crumple of carbon-grey patches and the skeleton of the gun itself, minimal though it is.

Illya looks up, wiping down the hollow of the slide. “Don’t mind me,” Napoleon says. “I’d hate to interrupt your moment.” He settles at the end of the coffee table and pushes up his sleeves. “I hope you bought it a drink first.”

“Maybe you need to,” Illya says, drily, and moves on to the spring, working the cloth between coils. Napoleon watches Illya’s hands — the quiet assurance with which he works, and the economy of motion — and the dull shine of the metal.

“Maybe I’m the one who needs that drink,” Napoleon says, and doesn’t move or look away.

“Don’t mind me,” Illya says, and doesn’t even have the decency to look up so that Napoleon can glare at him, just sets the spring aside and smooths a thumb over the action of the gun, picking up a smear of carbon-black and the faintest film of oil, and reaches out for another piece of cloth. “Unless you’d rather watch.”

“You know me,” Napoleon says. “Why watch when you can join in?”

“Of course,” Illya says, a smug knowingness to him, and Napoleon thinks that Illya does know him, after all. It isn’t an entirely pleasant thought. His thumb is still smeared black, even when he sets the cloth aside, and twists the recoil spring back onto the frame; Napoleon watches the flex of his wrist and his sure fingers and barely keeps from catching his breath.

“A drink and dinner,” Napoleon says, contemplative. “I’ve changed my mind. If you’re going to do that sort of thing, a night at the theater might even be called for as well.”

Illya cocks the hammer and works the slide back over the barrel, and settles the trigger guard back into place with a muted click; Napoleon picks at his palm for a moment, skin already peeling dry at the heel of his hand, and looks up in time to see Illya slotting the magazine back into place and weighing the gun in his hands. “I’m not so sure,” he says, turning to Napoleon. “Staying in might work just as well.”

 _For God’s sake,_ Napoleon thinks, and isn’t sure what comes next: _do something,_ he wants to say, needs something to work with and meet halfway, but instead he just sits, and looks, and when Illya finally leans forward Napoleon follows as if drawn, as if there’s nothing else he can do but sit up to meet Illya’s hand, and the faint smell of oil, and all the while Napoleon stares at the gun in Illya’s other hand, and can’t look away. Without the silencer, there’s less balance to it, and more business; like the shocking absoluteness of blood, or bone, it’s more real than everything around it, casts its surroundings into instant perspective.

Illya pushes the safety down, a tiny sound, and works the slide — and Napoleon knows, can feel the way that Illya shifts, even if he hadn’t heard the decisive click of it, that there’s a round chambered, simply by the way that Illya is holding himself, once again, in check — and Napoleon doesn’t move, not when Illya shifts his grip to hold Napoleon in place, and when the muzzle of the gun touches his temple, he doesn’t breathe, either, above the shallowest flutter.

Illya traces down, gentle over the delicate skin above the point of Napoleon’s jaw, and pressing harder as he follows the slope of Napoleon’s throat; Napoleon can’t tell if he has a finger on the trigger, and it doesn’t matter, not when he’s seen Illya move faster than he can track, decisive as a matter of course and all the more deadly for it. Illya traces down to the notch of Napoleon’s collarbone, and rests there for a moment, an uncomfortable edge of metal, and then barely brushes the line of his windpipe, up until the muzzle is pressed just under Napoleon’s chin.

Just as deliberately, Napoleon tips his head back, a slow degree at a time, and Illya follows, never letting the gun leave his skin. Napoleon tips his head to the side, and leans into the barrel, letting it slide down his cheek, and catch at the corner of his mouth, and when he presses a kiss to the muzzle, lips barely parted, he can’t help looking at Illya, the open flame of him.

There’s a click, and Napoleon realizes that it’s the safety, and it sounds like a shot in the reverent silence of the room; he jerks back, and Illya holds his hands up, trigger finger free of the guard, and says: “Wait.”

Napoleon does. Napoleon waits for him to put the gun in his case, and wipe his hands on the cloth, and close the case, and then he decides that he isn’t willing to wait, not for this, and gets to his feet. When Illya sets the case down on the table Napoleon crowds him back, until Illya takes him by the elbows and backs him into the wall. “I said wait,” Illya says.

“Why wait when I could do this,” Napoleon says, and leans up to kiss him, arching against his grip.

Illya leans away, though. “No safety here,” he says, and it takes Napoleon a moment to realize that he’s talking about the gun, or maybe the kiss, though the two are harder to disentangle than he’d thought at first.

“Do you know,” Napoleon says, “I think you’re more dangerous without the gun in your hands,” and he closes the space left between them, tugs Illya forward with the little leverage he can get with his arms pinned, and says, a breath away from his mouth: “That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

Illya kisses him, then, uncomplicated and insistent, and hard enough that Napoleon exhales in surprise, but not so hard that he doesn’t press into it, wishing for more. This close, Illya’s strength is difficult to ignore. Napoleon is used to finesse, an elegant choreography to his seductions, but Illya simply wants, presses forward to pin Napoleon with his body, the solidity of it, and Napoleon wants to push against him just to fail and take pleasure in doing so. “There’s a bed,” he says, instead.

Illya shrugs.

“Oh, well then,” Napoleon says, and can’t help pushing against Illya’s thigh between his own. “Suit yourself.”

“No sense of humor,” Illya says, and holds Napoleon — thumbs under his jaw, and pressing lightly at his throat — to kiss him again, and walk him backwards, inexorable, until the back of Napoleon’s knees hit the bed, and he almost regrets the loss of Illya’s hands.

“I thought it was funny,” Napoleon says, when he gets his breath back, and tugs at the straps of the holster that Illya is still wearing. “Good look, by the way, and so useful—” and when he pulls Illya down, he isn’t sure how much of it is effort and how much of it is sheer luck, and that knocks the breath out of Napoleon just as much as the weight of Illya, pressed against him shoulders to sternum to the steady grip of his hand on Napoleon’s hip “—and entirely unsafe,” he finishes. “Get that off, though.”

Illya does, and leaves it on the floor; he pushes Napoleon’s shirt off his shoulders, and divests himself of his own while Napoleon finishes the job and gets started on Illya’s belt. His hair is a mess, and Napoleon gets distracted by the way he wants to sink his hands into it, see what Illya looks like when he’s been kissed thoroughly to distraction, and if that’s even possible; he comes back to himself when Illya puts his thoughts into practice, and doesn’t stop at kissing, but leaves what will almost certainly be a mark under Napoleon’s jaw.

“Don’t tell me I have to do everything myself,” Napoleon manages, through gritted teeth, and gives up halfway, and simply yanks; Illya stumbles half a step, and lets go, and Napoleon thinks, _what the hell_ , and presses a kiss to the swoop of Illya’s ribs, the solid line of his side, and down to the jut of his hip, pushes at fabric until he can take Illya’s cock in his hand and drag his mouth up the side, open and messy, and rests the head on his lower lip and waits.

Illya swears, and says, “Napoleon,” in a voice that brooks no argument, and Napoleon smiles.

“Just checking,” he says, and licks his lips, goes down properly, makes it sloppy and wet and excessive in every way, mouth wet and his jaw starting to ache when he gets to the grip that he has on the base. Napoleon licks in long broad strokes, and when Illya gets used to that he opens his throat and lets Illya pull his hair and use his mouth, gasps for breath when he can and makes it good when he can’t until Illya pushes him off, and pulls his head back to look at him.

“Look at you,” Illya says, voice low and rough, and Napoleon sighs happily, because he knows what he looks like, eyes half-closed and gasping for air, mouth swollen and obscenely flushed, maybe bruising a little if he’s lucky.

“Come on,” he says, instead, and Illya helps him with his belt, hands still clumsy with pleasure, and tugs until he can press Napoleon face-down into the sheets, skin to skin, and bite at the nape of his neck; Napoleon arches into the sting of it, and Illya’s hands on his sides, his hips, and rocks into the sheets until he feels Illya pulling away. “Now what,” Napoleon says, aware that he’s being petulant, and Illya returns, spreads his fingers across the small of Napoleon’s back and uses his weight to pin him again.

“Keep complaining,” Illya says, “and I won’t do this—” and he presses his knuckle into the skin just below his hand, trails down until he can press a slick fingertip into Napoleon, just barely, and Napoleon jerks, his entire body moving with it, and gasps “—I thought so,” Illya says, smug, and Napoleon can’t find it in himself to be annoyed.

“Fuck,” he says, instead, “please, don’t stop,” and Illya doesn’t, but he takes his damnable time, one finger and then two and then, God, three, the slow stretch of it until Napoleon is shoving back onto his hand, fingernails digging into his own palms and wet all over the sheets. Illya is careful, but not kind, and his hands are so big — he’s still holding Napoleon down, one-handed, and it feels like a brand, like an immovable force — and Napoleon doesn’t know what he says, whether it’s pleading or pleading for Illya to stop, or if he’s beyond words, but Illya rubs his thumb over Napoleon’s back in circles, and lets him come back to himself a little. Napoleon thinks that he could come like this, from Illya’s fingers, immobile as he is, and then Illya slides his hand to Napoleon’s hip and pins him with his body instead, and Napoleon doesn’t think of anything but the strength of him, the way that he could — pull Napoleon back, like this, and — tilt his hips up, like this, and — press in, slow as agony, and — just move him, bodily, hands on his hips, mouth between his shoulder blades, the way that Illya does, the lightest press of teeth.

“Please,” Napoleon says, again, and rocks back, as much as Illya will let him.

“Please what,” Illya says. “Please this—” and he meets Napoleon halfway, slow and so good “—or please _this_ ,” he says, and takes Napoleon by the shoulder, thumb on the nape of his neck, and holds him there, face pressed into the sheets, makes him take it, and knows what Napoleon will say before he does, but waits.

“Please,” Napoleon says, “that, this, just, fuck, come on,” and Illya does. Illya wraps an arm around Napoleon’s chest and holds him down by the shoulder and digs his nails in, fucks him until Napoleon is nothing but coiled pressure, doesn’t know how to express what he needs except through the arch of his back — the way he takes — the half-choked sob in his voice when Illya finally lets him up enough to get one hand around his cock, nowhere near enough and yet, with the rest of it, far too much.

“Look at you,” Illya says again, and Napoleon doesn’t want to, but then he must look as if he was made for this, throwing himself again and again at the things that will destroy him, surely — invulnerability gained by kissing the bomb, impossible odds beaten over and over again — and Illya’s fingers slip, his thumbnail scraping across Napoleon’s spine, and Napoleon comes so hard that he loses his grip and gasps a vowel into the sheets, entirely undone and wrung out.

Illya presses himself against Napoleon’s back after that, rolls his hips in long, slow drags, and Napoleon can’t take it — he can’t — but he does, shivering, until Illya gasps against his shoulder and goes still, holds there until his breathing slows and he takes some of the weight off of Napoleon, pulling away. Napoleon sighs, and arches again, more because he’s not sure if he’s capable of anything beyond that, even that too much movement too soon.

Illya settles beside him, and traces down the line of Napoleon’s back, presses idle fingers between his legs to feel, and Napoleon hums lazily at the feeling of Illya’s fingertips, lets Illya rub the pad of his thumb over him and press, filthy, holding him open and smearing wetness. “Definitely more dangerous without the gun,” Napoleon says, and Illya snorts, curls a finger into him past the knuckle, holds him still with just that and a look. “I still want that drink, you know.”

“This is better than the theater, though,” Illya says.

Napoleon leans up to kiss him, idle and insistent. “Much,” he says, and doesn’t look away, or hold his breath, or wait for the catch of the safety.


End file.
